Simple and Successful Teaching Strategies
- In order to achieve this sense of complete satisfaction - for you and
the student you're helping - take a look at some of these tried and tested
teaching strategies.

Communities
of Practice and Pattern Language- James B. Smethurst. For any member
of a Community of Practice, there comes a time to interface with individuals
and organizations which do not form part of the Community. The difficulty
of this situation is the issue of language. Every Community of Practice
has its own pattern language, its own way of expressing and discussing
the unique qualities of its chosen art.

Digital Classroom
- To encourage teachers of students at all levels to use archival documents
in the classroom, the Digital Classroom provides materials from the National
Archives and methods for teaching with primary sources.

The
contention between student-centered and teacher-centered approaches has a long
history. Constructivism is often related to the philosophies of Dewey and
Rousseau, and inspired by Piaget and Vygotsky. Instructivism is related to
faculty psychology, behaviorism, and to the research-based programs of the last
few decades known as process-product pedagogy, such as the work of Bereiter and
Rosenshine.

Opposition
to the Theory

A
Critique of Radical Social Constructivism by Peter Slezak. "As I
will suggest, there could be no more fundamental challenge to education
than the one posed by the radical form of social constructivism, since it
purports to overturn the very conception of knowledge in the Western
Tradition: The self-advertising grandiosely proclaims, 'The foundations of
modern thought are at stake here.' ”

Constructivism
in Science and Mathematics Education by Michael R. Matthews.
"Constructivism is undoubtedly a major theoretical influence in
contemporary science and mathematics education. Some would say it is
the major influence. In its post-modernist and deconstructionist
form, it is a significant influence in literary, artistic, history and
religious education. Constructivism seemingly fits in with, and
supports, a range of multicultural, feminist and broadly reformist
programmes in education. Although constructivism began as a theory
of learning, it has progressively expanded its dominion, becoming a theory
of teaching, a theory of education, a theory of the origin of ideas, and a
theory of both personal knowledge and scientific knowledge. Indeed
constructivism has become education’s version of the ‘grand unified
theory’."

Developmentalism:
An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction on Educational Improvement - by
J. E. Stone. "Despite continuing criticism of public education,
experimentally demonstrated and field tested teaching methods have been
ignored, rejected, and abandoned. Instead of a stable consensus regarding
best teaching practices, there seems only an unending succession of
innovations. A longstanding educational doctrine appears to underlie this
anomalous state of affairs. Termed developmentalism, it presumes
"natural" ontogenesis to be optimal and it requires
experimentally demonstrated teaching practices to overcome a presumption
that they interfere with an optimal developmental trajectory. It also
discourages teachers and parents from asserting themselves with children.
Instead of effective interventions, it seeks the preservation of a
postulated natural perfection. Developmentalism's rich history is
expressed in a literature extending over 400 years. Its notable exponents
include Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget; and its most
recent expressions include "developmentally appropriate
practice" and "constructivism." In the years during which
it gained ascendance, developmentalism served as a basis for rejecting
harsh and inhumane teaching methods. Today it impedes efforts to hold
schools accountable for student academic achievement."

Our Oldest
Unchallenged Folk Theory - Carl Bereiter. "Here we are in
the information age, relying on a theory of mind that is probably older
than the wheel. Every other folk theory—folk physics, folk biology, folk
economics—has had to yield to more powerful theories, better equipped to
address the problems of an adventurous civilization. According to one
story, this has also happened with theory of mind. Something called
‘cognitive science’ arose in the 1950s and developed rapidly. Its most
conspicuous manifestations have been in artificial intelligence and
robotics, but it has had a significant and sometimes revolutionary effect
on all the behavioral sciences. Although it may be true that most of the
world’s business is still conducted according to folk theories of mind,
this may be only a matter of cultural lag, which will be overcome as
cognitive science takes hold. The trouble with this story is that for most
purposes the effect of cognitive science has not been to replace folk
theory but to reinstate it, after its exile by behaviorism."

Old
Wine in New Bottles: A Problem with Constructivist Epistemology by
Michael R. Matthews. "My criticism in brief is that
constructivism maintains the widespread, commonsensical, subject-centred,
Aristotelian-empiricist epistemological paradigm, and by correctly
pointing to a major error in empiricist assumptions, it then swings to a
relativist epistemology without abandoning the paradigm itself. The
relativist conclusion only follows within the empiricist paradigm, if this
paradigm is rejected — and there are good reasons for so doing — no such
relativist epistemological conclusions follow, and certainly no idealist
ontological conclusions follow. Epistemologically, constructivism is the
well-known old empiricist wolf in contemporary sheep’s clothing; to change
metaphors, it is the empiricist wine, so criticised by constructivists,
served up in new bottles."

Constructivism
in Education: Sophistry for a New Age by Martin A.Kozloff. "
Constructivist writing typically begins with an intellectually dishonest
and shallow critique of the "instructivist" (Finn & Ravitch,
1996)--sometimes called "behavioral"--approach. This critique is
a thinly-disguised rhetorical device by which the writer stakes an
undeserved claim to the moral high ground and tries to convince readers
that the constructivist has anything worth saying."

Are constructivism
and computer-based learning environments incompatible? by Stephen
Gance. "The purpose of this article is to support my claim that the
facile association of computer-based educational technologies as
inherently constructivist cannot be sustained. Further, much educational
software and many web sites are retrograde in the sense that they largely
incorporate behaviorist or information transfer strategies that are
antithetical to a constructivist philosophy. I will confine my claim to
what I call “learning environments” which I define as software or web
sites organized to be the primary source of information and interaction
for the learner. Web-based courses which are primarily intended for
individual learner use would be an example of such an environment. Often,
in public schools, web sites are organized into a “webquest” which
involves one or more students seeking information from a set of web sites,
largely without teacher intervention. Such webquests would be another
example of a computer-based learning environment."

The Pythagorean
Theorem by G. D. Chakerian and Kurt Kreith. "At a recent school
meeting, a group of Davis parents and teachers used the Pythagorean
theorem to illustrate the difference between a constructivist vs.
traditional approach to teaching. Their goal was to provide other parents
with a basis for responding to a recent decision by the Davis Board of
Education. For in Fall, 1996 Davis junior high schools will offer a choice
between two different courses in Algebra 1, one emphasizing constructivist
pedagogy and the other relying on a more traditional deductive
approach."

New
Metaphors of Learning: Going Beyond "Constructivism" by
University of Helsinki. "in current educational discourse, there is
much talk about constructivism. It is a general slogan that is
used to separate "modern" and "advanced" practices of
learning and instruction from old-fashioned and "obsolete"
practices. The problem is that this kind of labeling does not help
to understand what is going on when people are or are not learning
something. Practically all processes or structures associated with
learning may be said to be constructed; this kind of declaration does not
get teachers and researchers very far. In practical pedagogical
situations, putative "constructivist" assumptions may also
be dangerous and counter-productive if they guide teachers or students to
belief that sophisticated knowledge and skills can be attained by relying
only on a student's own constructive efforts without teachers’ systematic
and deliberate efforts to help all students to adopt cultural
knowledge."

Constructivism and
cooperation between scientists and educators: A reply to Crowther by
Thomas H. Illman. " The varieties of "constructivism"
exhibit more "negative identities" (Bickhard 1997, 29) than
intelligible positive proposals. Such proposals are needed as a basis for
fruitful discussion and eventually cooperation between
"constructivists" and mainstream natural scientists (or
non-"constructivist" educators). Admittedly, most critics of
"constructivism" have also failed to provide positive
pedagogical ideas."

The Failure of
Progressive Education: Survey Says Employers Find Grads Lacking Basic
Skills by Anna Bray Duff,. "The promise of the progressive
movement in education was grand: a more humane system of schools that
would better address the needs of individual children, producing smarter
students and adults prepared for their roles in society...The results,
however, were anything but grand. However good the intentions, the
progressive education movement helped leave American students lagging the
world in critical skills. at home, it helped entrench the very inequality
of opportunity that schools were supposed to help overcome."

Terminology Every Parent
Must Understand by E.D.Hirsh. "Constructivism. This term is
used to give progressivist education ideas a "spurious
scientific-sounding authority." Proponents of constructivism suggest
that the only knowledge worth acquiring is that which a student finds for
one's self because it is more likely to be remembered and used. Hirsch
recognizes that this kind of knowledge is useful. However, he also claims
that "both discovery learning and guided learning" are actually
"constructivist," so the term doesn't add anything to the
discussion."

Romancing The Child"
by E. D. Hirsch Jr. "The Disney Corporation’s Celebration School
sounded like yet another fairy tale from the creators of the
Little Mermaid and the Lion King. It was supposed
to be the ideal school, set in Disney’s newly created Florida community,
Celebration. According to the New York Times, the school was to follow the
“most advanced” progressive educational methods. In fact these “new”
methods were rebottled versions of earlier progressive schemes going back
at least 100 years—as Diane Ravitch has documented in her recent book Left
Back—schemes such as multi-aged groups in which each child goes at his or
her own pace; individualized assessments instead of objective tests;
teachers as coaches rather than sages; projects instead of
textbooks."

Fad, Fraud, and Folly in
Education by Martin A. Kozloff. "For one thing, ordinary fads are
cheap and harmless. A pastel blue leisure suit in the 1970's cost $39.95
and when passe' (in two months) could be given to the Salvation
Army. In contrast, pernicious innovations in education waste time,
money, energy, hope, learning opportunities, and the chances for
beneficent outcomes. Instead of being taught to feed himself, walk,
point to things he wants, operate a tape player or computer, look at the
faces of his parents, and turn the pages of books, the fully included 16
year old student with severe mental retardation sits strapped into a
wheelchair in a high school history class. He learns nothing
whatever; his teachers know it's a cruel hoax, but "inclusion
specialists" are satisfied with "social progress"
(increased tolerance and social justice) and have higher self-esteem for a
job well done."

Constructivism
and Instructivism Links

A journey into
Constructivism - by Martin Dougiamas. An essay detailing my initial
learning about constructivism, outlining it's major faces and concepts.

An
Interpretation Construction Approach to Constructivist Design - John
B. Black and Robert O. McClintock."Study is a key concept in making
design more fruitful in education. We propose that what students are doing
when they construct knowledge is studying. Specifically, we think that the
term study captures better what should be going on during knowledge
construction then does the term learn."

Anchored
Instruction - John Bransford & the CTGV. "Anchored
instruction is a major paradigm for technology-based learning that has
been developed by the Cognition & Technology Group at Vanderbilt
(CTGV) under the leadership of John Bransford. While many people have
contributed to the theory and research o f anchored instruction, Bransford
is the principal spokesperson and hence the theory is attributed to
him."

Applying
constructivism: A test for the learner as scientist. - by Tom Cobb,
Dép. de linguistique et de didactique des langues, Université du Québec à
Montréal, Canada. Educational Technology Research & Development, 47
(3),15-31."Constructivist learning theory predicts that knowledge
encoded from data by learners themselves will be more flexible,
transferable, and useful than knowledge encoded for them by experts and
transmitted to them by an instructor or other delivery agent. If this
prediction is correct, then learners should be modeled as scientists and
use the reasoning and technologies of scientists to construct their own
knowledge. However, it cannot be taken for granted that the prediction is
correct, or correct in every knowledge domain. The present study attempts
to establish conditions in which the prediction can be operationalized and
tested. It reports on the adaptation of constructivist principles to
instructional design in a particular domain, second language vocabulary
acquisition. Students learning English for academic purposes in the
Sultanate of Oman followed one of two approaches to vocabulary expansion,
learning pre-encoded dictionary definitions of words, or constructing
definitions for themselves using an adapted version of the computational
tools of lexicographers. After 12 weeks, both groups were equal in
definitional knowledge of target words, but lexicography group students
were more able to transfer their word knowledge to novel contexts."

Beyond the
Individual-Social Antimony in Discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky -
Michael Cole & James V. Wertsch . "Ever since the publication of
the first translation of Vygotsky's Thought and Language (reborn as
Thinking and Speech 25 years later) there has been an ongoing debate about
the relationship between the ideas of Vygotsky and Piaget. In the brief
space available, we have no interest in arguing the virtues of one man's
ideas over the other. Instead, we will suggest that by and large
commentators on the differences between these two thinkers have placed too
narrow an emphasis on their ideas about the primacy of individual
psychogenesis versus sociogenesis of mind while neglecting what we believe
is a cardinal difference between them: their views concerning the importance
of culture, in particular, the role of mediation of action through
artifacts, on the development of mind."

Building
an Understanding of Constructivism - Southwest Educational Development
Laboratory. "Written activities and exercises alone do not go to the
heart of constructivism, but books have laid the groundwork for this
approach to learning. The basic writings in this field are sometimes
interesting and often illuminating, even though they cannot
"give" anyone constructivism. Teachers, however, can use these
works to build their own understanding of constructivism
and its place in the classroom. Here are some representative selections of
constructivist thinking and of useful guides to constructivist
ideas."

Carving a New Path
for Distance Education Research"Though it has been shown that
actively involving students in discussion fosters retention of
information, application of knowledge, and development of critical
thinking skills, between 70% and 90% of professors still use the
traditional lecture as their instructional strategy of choice (Gardiner,
1998). Why is this? Perhaps many educators are still having difficulty
shedding the protective cloak of their traditional instructivist training.
In many cases, teachers teach as they have been taught (Gardiner, 1998).
Since an instructivist learning theory has prevailed for quite some time,
it is understandable why so many instructors have used a teacher-centered
approach in the classroom, and why much of current research tacitly
approves an instructivist worldview. This may also explain the tendency of
traditional students to exhibit dependent (passive) learning styles (Grasha,
1996)."

Changing Educational
Assumptions and Their Influence on Distance Education Research -
The Technology Source. "To some, the proposed dichotomy between
instructivism and constructivism may seem an oversimplification of
learning theory. It is still important, however, to understand how
underlying philosophies of education influence not only educational
practice but also research. The extent to which teachers see themselves as
"instructivist" versus "constructivist" implicitly
determines the extent to which classroom activities are based on teacher
or student preferences, and may also influence the focus of research
design."

Cognitive Constructivism:
Free Will and Knowledge as Perception - Francis F. Steen,
Department of English, UC Santa Barbara. "Our notion of the
qualitative infinity of nature can usefully be brought out by considering
the role of the atomic hypothesis of Democritus. Not only did this
hypothesis show the importance of speculative new concepts going far
beyond what could be demonstrated at the time of its proposal, but it also
exhibited a further key feature that we would like to emphasize here. This
is that deeper explanations often imply the limited validity of what were
previously accepted as basic concepts, which later are then recovered only
as approximations or limiting cases."

Constructivism
and narrative psychology.- Luis Botella, Ramon Llull University.
"During a significant part of its not so long history, psychology
uncritically accepted the basic assumptions of what has been termed an
objectivist epistemology. Some of these basic assumptions, chiefly derived
from positivism and logical empiricism, are as follows. First, objectivist
psychology endorses a mechanistic worldview, seeing the world--and its
inhabitants--as a complex machine, and events in nature as the product of
the transmittal of forces. Second, objectivist psychology views knowledge
as a process of value-free observation and accumulation of discrete pieces
of evidence; that is, what Kelly termed accumulative fragmentalism. Third,
objectivist psychology accepts truth-value as the only valid criteria for
justifying a proposition. Fourth, the objectivist application of these and
other assumptions to the study of human beings gives place to a view of
people as reactive and passive organisms, determined by their environment
in an almost unidirectional way."

'Constructivism
in Cognitive Film Theory - by Kevin W Sweeney. "In recent
years, film theory has seen the emergence of a cognitive theory of
narrative comprehension and interpretation. <1> The theory arose
from a dissatisfaction with poststructuralist theories of narrative that
emphasize the film viewer's unconscious or ideologically coded responses
to screened images.<2> Rejecting this Lacanian-Althusserian
model of film narration and viewer response, cognitivists such as David
Bordwell, Edward Branigan and No‰l [sic] Carroll analyze cinematic
comprehension in terms of active viewers' ordinary psychological processes
and strategies of problem solving. Narrative film viewing, they
claim, consists of the same sorts of top-down (conceptualizing and
inferring) and bottom-up (sensory, data-driven, automatic) psychological
processes that perceivers use to understand events in the world
aroundthem. I will refer to this general theory as cinematic
cognitivism."

Constructiivsm
- From Philosophy to Practice - by Elizabeth Murphy. "How we
perceive knowledge and the process of coming to know provides the basis
for educational practice. If we believe that learners passively receive
information then priority in instruction will be on knowledge
transmission. If, on the other hand, we believe that learners actively
construct knowledge in their attempts to make sense of their world, then
learning will likely emphasize the development of meaning and
understanding. Constructivists generally claim that knowledge is not
discovered and that the ideas teachers teach do not correspond to an
objective reality."

Constructing
Language at MundoHispano - by Cathy Hall (MOO (Multi-user domain,
Object-Oriented) . "MOO (Multi-user domain, Object-Oriented) is a
text-based virtual environment that permits synchronous communication
between ‘players’ from around the world who are logged on at the same
time. They may be working with other players on the MOO to create the MOO
environment, participating in a cross-cultural social environment, or
collaborating with professional colleagues from around the world, etc.
Because of the nature of the MOO environment, e.g., synchronous
communication and a text-based environment that can be built and
manipulated by the players themselves, MOOs can provide a constructivist
learning experience that is not available in the traditional second
language (L2) classroom, especially those not in the target language
country. Although MOOs offer a culturally rich environment for most any
learning situation, this paper will focus on MundoHispano, an environment
rich in constructivist learning possibilities for the Spanish language
learner."

Constructionist
Learning Theory - by Elizabeth Murphy. "Whether knowledge is seen
as socially situated or whether it is considered to be an individual
construction has implications for the ways in which learning is
conceptualized."

Constructivist Learning,
Part 1 - by Elaine Winters. The entire shape of education is about to
change as we shift, slowly, from Objectivism to Constructivism.

Constructivism
- Exploring Technology and School Reform, by Andy Carvin

Constructivism
- University of Bergen, Norway. A brief overview &
interesting links for further study.

Constructivism -
by Leslie Grightmire. "In a constructivist environment the learner
has a multitude of ways to address an issue such as experimentation,
computer models, and dialogue with peers. Learners are active, independent
participants in the learning process testing their knowledge against
others and arriving at a solution, or activity, for that issue."

Constructivism
- The contributions of the Constructivist Position. "Hilary McLellan
(1996) quotes Nicolas Negroponte's suggestion that we are now in the age
of being digital and that the implications in educational terms are not so
much technological but rather human. She notes several trends that
are in effect in how technology is being adapted for education, and mentions
that the first trend is a better understanding of mental processes (based
on cognitive science) as relating to technology and cognition. One
area that is emphasized is the perspective and theory of constructivism."

Constructivism and
Non-Western Science Education Research - by W.W.Cobern (PDF
Format). "In this paper, I argue that science
education research and curriculum development efforts in Non-western
countries can benefit by adopting a constructivist view of science and
science learning. The past efforts at transferring curricula from the
West, and local development projects that result in curricula only
marginally different from Western curricula, stem from an acultural view
of science. These efforts also ground science learning in concepts of
logical thinking rather than understanding. The resulting level of science
learning, however, has not met expectations. Constructivism offers a very
different view of science and science learning. It assumes that logical
thinking is an inherently human quality regardless of culture, and instead
focuses attention on the processes of interpretation that lead to
understanding. Constructivism leads one to expect that students in
different cultures will have somewhat different perspectives on science.
Science education research should inform curriculum projects that
incorporate this point, thus making science curricula authentically
sensitive to culture and authentically scientific. Japanese elementary
science education based on the Japanese traditional love of nature is a
good example."

Constructivism and
Teaching - The socio-cultural context - Barbara Jaworski. "It
has recently become fashionable to talk about constructivism in relation
to the teaching and learning of mathematics. I want to make clear at the
start of this piece that the term constructivist teaching is not well
defined, and further that it contradicts, philosophically, the meaning of
constructivism as I understand it. In fact constructivism is not about teaching
at all. It is about knowledge and learning. So I believe it makes sense to
talk about a constructivist view of learning. And we might ask about the
teaching which results from such a view of learning. It is possibly this
which is meant when the term 'constructivist teaching' is coined, but I
believe it is not pedantic to question its use. Personally I am very
interested in the teaching which might result from a teacher's commitment
to a constructivist view of learning, and that is what I want to work towards
below."

Constructivism
as a Referent for Science Teaching - by Anthony Lorsbach and Kenneth
Tobin. "Constructivism is an epistemology, a theory
of knowledge used to explain how we know what we know. We believe that a
constructivist epistemology is useful to teachers if used as a referent;
that is, as a way to make sense of what they see, think, and do. Our
research indicates that teachers' beliefs about how people learn (their
personal epistemology), whether verbalized or not, often help them make
sense of, and guide, their practice."

Constructivism
vs. Instructivism - by Karen Barton. "This page
was designed for researching two pedagogical styles of instruction. Its
purpose is to introduce teachers, briefly, to example philosophies and
opinions regarding the different models. It is our hope that with this
information, a teacher can build..."

Constructivism,
Educational Research, and John Dewey - by Raf Vanderstraeten and Gert
Biesta. "Schools are expected to transmit knowledge
to younger generations. They are, however, also increasingly criticized
for distributing so-called inert knowledge, i.e., knowledge that is
accessed only in a restricted set of contexts eventhough it is applicable
to a wide variety of domains. The causes of limited knowledge transfer are
mostly attributed to the dis-embeddedness of learning situations in
schools. Instructional procedures that result in learning in the sense of
being able to recall relevant information provide no guarantee that people
will spontaneously use it later. "Authentic learning," acquiring
knowledge in the contexts that (will) give this knowledge its meaning, is
now being presented as an alternative. Underpinning these reform proposals
is not only a (growing) concern with efficiency, but is also a new
epistemological theory, labelled as constructivism. This paper will,
first, focus on the layout of and diverging perspectives within recent
constructivist research in education. Next, the epistemological approach
of John Dewey will be discussed, which takes as its starting point the
relation of knowledge to action. Finally, we will indicate what a Deweyan
approach might add to the constructivist research in education."

Constructivist
Learning Design - by George W. Gagnon, Jr. and Michelle Collay. "This
paper represents a collaborative effort of two teacher educators to
articulate a constructivist approach to "designing for learning"
rather than planning for teaching." Constructivist
Learning Environments - by Elizabeth Murphy . "In
spite of the fact that constructivism is not a model of learning, it can
provide a strong and coherent theory or set of principles which can serve
as a guide in the design of learning environments. The many projects
described in Wilson's book and the three projects summarized in this paper
serve as specific examples of successful attempts at developing and implementing
constructivist-learning environments. Many of the environments exhibited
common traits such as the authentic context for learning, collaborative
work and an emphasis on problem-solving. The environments all relied on
technology to facilitate the approach indicating that computers and
related technology have an essential role to play in the realization of
constructivist learning."

Constructivist
Learning Theory - George E. Hein. "The latest catchword in
educational circles is "constructivism, " applied both to
learning theory and to epistemology---both to how people learn, and to the
nature of knowledge. We don't need to succumb to each new fad, but we do
need to think about our work in relation to theories of learning and
knowledge. So we need to ask: what is constructivism, what does it have to
tell us that is new and relevant, and how do we apply it to our work? As
far as I can see, there is nothing dramatically new in constructivism: the
core ideas expressed by it have been clearly enunciated by John Dewey
among others, but there is a new, widespread acceptance of this old set of
ideas. and new research in cognitive psychology to support it. I would
like to give a brief exposition of ideas central to constructivism and
widely accepted today by educators. Curriculum developers and cognitive
psychologists, and then suggest what they mean for museum educators."

Constructivist
Learning Theory to Web-Based Course Design: An Instructional Design
Approach - Simone Conceição-Runlee and Barbara J.Daley . "With
the advent of web-based courses and distance education technology, it is necessary
to carefully consider how the use of this technology fosters the learning
intended in adult education programs. In this paper, we have
outlined constructivist learning theory as an approach to fostering
web-based course development. A constructivist approach allows both learners
and facilitators to take advantage of the World Wide Web, because the
theory focuses on making connections and making meaning in the learning
process. Web-based courses that are designed with a constructivist
approach encourage the learners to navigate, create, and construct their
unique knowledge base. "

Constructivist
listserve - Park College, An email forum for teachers and educational
researchers for the discussion of constructivist philosophy

Constructivist
Teaching Strategies - Dr. Graham W. Dettrick. "The
essence of the inquiry approach is to teach pupils to handle situations
which they encounter when dealing with the physical world by using
techniques which are applied by research scientists. Inquiry means that
teachers design situations so that pupils are caused to employ procedures
research scientists use to recognise problems, to ask questions, to apply
investigational procedures, and to provide consistent descriptions,
predictions, and explanations which are compatible with shared experience
of the physical world."

Constructivist
Theory Unites Distance Learning and Teacher Education - by Teri Crotty-
"With this view of teaching and learning in mind, the challenge
becomes one of designing course requirements which require the learner to
mediate and construct with the help of others. Engaging preservice
teachers in distance learning activities seemed to be a logical choice for
encouraging students to seek the assistance of others yet take
responsibility for constructing their own meaning."

Conversation, Education,
Constructivism and Cybernetics - by Elin Whitney-Smith. "Cybernetics
is the science of communication and control in the animal and the machine.
Many modern cyberneticians are constructivists. Cyberneticians and
constructivists claim to deal with conversations and new ways to structure
environments; tohave ways of thinking which will change the world.
Implying that cyberneticians and constructivists should teach in a way
that restructures the traditional classroom. Or to put it more baldly,
cyberneticians and constructivists should be consistent in their theory
and practice."

Critical
characteristics of situated learning - by Jan Herrington and Ron Oliver. "When
situated learning was first described as an emerging model of instruction
in 1989, its principal proponents believed thatthis was just the
beginning--the model would continue to evolve and develop with new
research and theory. This paper willdescribe the current thinking on
situated learning and the critical characteristics that distinguish it from
other models of instruction. The use of situated learning as an approach
to the design of learning environments has significant implications for
the instructional design of computer-based programs. Strategies for the
application of these characteristics to the instructional design of
interactive multimedia will be explored. Specific examples will be given
to show how these strategies have been applied in the development of
interactive multimedia products at Edith Cowan University."

CSCL
Theories - by Jy Wana Daphne Lin Hsiao. "Computer
supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has grown out of wider research
into computer supported collaborative work (CSCW) and collaborative learning.
CSCW is defined as a computer-based network system that supports group
work in a common task and provides a shared interface for groups to work
with (Ellis et al. 1991)."

Educational
Technology's Effect on Models of Instruction - Judith Conway. "Many
educational psychologists found the behavioral approach unsatisfying. In
the areas of problem solving and learning strategies they became more
concerned with what was unobservable - what was going on inside the brain.
These theories are based on the work of educational philosopher John
Dewey, and educational psychologists Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, Jerome
Bruner among others. They propose that children actively construct
knowledge and this construction of knowledge happens in a social context.
Vygotsky proposed that all learning takes place in the 'zone of proximal
development'. This 'zone' is the difference between what a child can do
alone and what he/she can do with assistance. By building on the child's
experiences and providing moderately challenging tasks teachers can
provide the 'intellectual scaffolding' to help children learn and progress
through the different stages of development."

Epistemology,
Instructional Design and the New South Africa,with particular reference
- by Peter de Lisle. "If one wants empowerment and
emancipation of learners, an Instructivist methodology can not be an
adequate means of delivery. Surely there is a more constructivist way of
providing practice for learners? Drills are fundamentally boring, however
much motivation is added on. There must be other methods, which are
inherently interesting, which do not require an external motivation or
reward to retain learners' interest. In Mathematics, learners can be given
different scenarios or case studies to deal with that require slightly
varied applications of a concept that has already been constructed. The
similarities will confirm the learner's ideas already formed, and the
differences will challenge the learner to form a better, more
generaliseable concept."

EuroAIED'96
Paper- by Barbara Wasson. "For Rieber,
there are two dominant and divergent interpretations of instructional
technology: cognitive orientations to learning and instructional design,
or instructivism (Reiber, 1992); and constructivism which Reiber says sees
computers as a rich source of cognitive tools - an electronic type of
"Play-Doh" (Rieber, in press). Although instructivist systems,
through their association with instructional systems design (ISD), have
their roots in programmed instruction (application of Skinner's behavioural
learning principles to instruction), the recent influence of cognitive
theory has shifted the early emphasis from instruction to the learner.
Cognitive theories of instructional design (e.g., Lowyck & Elen, 1993)
are beginning to emerge where notions such as mental encoding and
retrieving, depth of processing, meta-cognition etc. are mentioned."

From Essentialism to
Constructivism: Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads - by Andrew
Feenberg. "What Heidegger called 'The Question of
Technology' has a peculiar status in the academy today. After World War
II, the humanities and social sciences were swept by a wave of
technological determinism. If technology was not praised for modernizing
us, it was blamed for the crisis of our culture. Whether interpreted in
optimistic or pessimistic terms, determinism appeared to offer a
fundamental account of modernity as a unified phenomenon. This approach
has now been largely abandoned for a view that admits the possibility of
significant "difference," i.e. cultural variety in the reception
and appropriation of modernity. Yet the breakdown of simplistic
determinism has not led to quite the flowering of research in philosophy
of technology one might hope for."

ILT:
Pedagogy for the 21st Century - by Joshua H. Reibel and a Ben D. Wood
(PDF file). "To the extent that the Institute
follows and advances any one educational philosophy, it is a constructivist
one. Constructivism [3] [4] is actually a collection of theories and ideas
about different issues in pedagogy that are informed by a range of
philosophical/epistemological outlooks. Some of these conceptions are
incommensurate with each other; others complement each other. The
Institute conceives of the constructivist agenda [5] as primarily
motivated by a recognition that most, if not all, knowledge domains are
complex and ill-structured in a number of ways that require for their
mastery experience with a broad range of cases that reflect the complexity
and diversity of the field. Aligned with this idea are the related notions
that learning requires a significant degree of practical experience with
the application of principles, and that learning is a kind of
enculturation akin to the acquiring of natural language knowledge and
skill. By and large, knowledge and skill are seen as intimately bound up
with each other, such that the folk categories of knowing what and knowing
how [6] are seen as significantly interdependent. Flowing from these
general principles are more specific practices such as so-called 'anchored
instruction’, 'cognitive apprenticeship' [7], and 'collaborative learning'
that find articulation throughout the literature and that the Institute
brings to life in its projects."

Implications
of Online delivery for teaching and learning in Education and Training
- by Ros Brennan. "The specificity of the
curriculum or the Training Package which determines the content of
delivery will have an influence on the variety of constructivist
strategies that can be used Online. Tight curriculum and assessment
proscriptions usually focus on a controlled and formalised teaching and encourage
a learning environment that is characterised by instructivist rather than
constructivist views of what is needed."

Instructional
approach - Youth Net. "The Student Research
Center approach to instruction emphasizes an integrated and holistic
curriculum. All subject areas across the curriculum are synthesized
into a dynamic and holistic field of learning for the scientific study of
relevant concepts, topics, issues, themes, and problems.
This interdisciplinary model of an integrated curriculum eliminates the
common practice of scheduling isolated time slots for each subject area of
the curriculum (Fogarty, 1991). Students use language arts, math, science,
and social studies skills in a synergistic manner throughout the day as
they apply them to the research and publication process emphasized by the
instructional approach."

Interactive learning
as an "emerging" technology: A reassessment of interactive and
instructional design strategies - by Roderick C.H. Sims. "Teaching
large groups of students via formal lectures is not the ideal way to
encourage a deep approach to learning. Lecturing is a one-way transmission
of information. It does not provide opportunities for students to engage
in a continuing dialogue with the lecturer, where their conceptions can be
shaped through feedback. Nor does it allow students to actively apply and
experiment with their conceptions or to reflect on experiences and
feedback."

ITFORUM Paper
1 - Technology as Cognitive Tools: Learners as Designers. - by David
H. Jonassen. "This short paper is
about the application of technologies, primarily computers, as cognitive
learning tools rather than as instructional media. I will argue that technologies,
from the ecological perspective of Gibson (1979), afford the most
meaningful thinking when used as tools. In the past, instructional
designers have been invested with these tools for the purpose of
"designing" instruction which, in effect, only constrained the
learners. The only people who significantly benefit from the design
process and the use of those tools were the designers, not the learners
(Perkins , 1986). Therefore, I shall argue that we should take the tools
away from the instructional designers and give them to the learners, as
tools for knowledge construction rather than media of conveyance and
knowledge acquisition. The process of building knowledge bases using these
tools (a process that Papert refers to as constructionism) will engage the
learners more and result in more meaningful and transferable knowledge in
the learners. I argue that we should invest the power of the technologies
in the learners. Power to the people, so to speak."

"There is a revolution taking place in
education, one that deals with the philosophy of how one teaches, of the
relationship between teacher and student, of the way in which a classroom
is structured, and the nature of curriculum. At the heart is a powerful
pedagogy, one that has been developing over the past hundred years. It
embraces social issues, the culture of the classroom, life-long learning
concerns, and perhaps both last and least, technology."

Learner-Centered
Psychological Principles: A Framework for School Redesign and Reform by
a Work Group of the American Psychological Association's Board of
Educational Affairs (BEA). " Throughout its history, psychology has
provided vital information for the design of schooling based on theory and
research on human learning, development, and motivation. Research in
psychology relevant to education has been particularly informative during
the past decade. Advances in our understanding of thinking, memory, and
cognitive and motivational processes can contribute directly to
improvements in teaching, learning, and the whole enterprise of schooling.
At the same time, educators concerned with the growing problems of school
dropout, low levels of academic achievement, and other indicators of
school failure are arguing for more learner-centered models of schooling.
Such models attend to the diversity among students, and use this diversity
to enrich learning and to produce results within the context of current
school reform."

MIT
Epistimology and Learning Group Projects- "We are
developing "constructionism" as a theory of learning and a
strategy for education. Constructionism is based on two different senses
of "construction." It is grounded in the idea that people learn
by actively constructing new knowledge, not by having information
"poured" into their heads. Moreover, constructionism asserts
that people learn with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in
"constructing" personally meaningful artifacts (such as computer
programs, animations, or robots)."

Pedagogy of
Control - by Kay S. Bull. "There are two
competing philosophies and concomitant pedagogues which come into play
when we look at ways to design materials for use in Computer Mediated
Learning (CML) . . .The first of these is the Pedagogy of Control, which
asserts that the teacher is in control of the learning process and should
dictate what the student will learn. The second is the Pedagogy of Choice,
which asserts that the learner is in control of his/her own learning and
that the needs of the learner, in terms of interest, curiosity, and
perception of what is needed, are paramount."

Pitfalls, Risks
and Challenges in Teaching Biology of Cognition - by Juan-Carlos
Letelier, Fernando Leniz and Francisco Bascuñan. "Biology
of Cognition has had a profound impact in many areas of the academic
endeavor. Outside academia the growing impact of these ideas steadily
increases with various disciplines using these ideas to influence the
behavior of humans groups, ranging from families to businesses. The main
concepts of Biology of Cognition are difficult to grasp, thus, some
fundamental notions of the theory can be misunderstood. Frequent errors
and pitfalls include the identification of a subject-dependent cognition
with the notion that the universe is arbitrary, and the misconception that
language is a tool that by itself can change the world of the observer.
This paper describes our experience in teaching these ideas to
post-graduate audiences and focuses on the most common misconceptions that
these ideas might trigger."

Powerful
Ideas in Physical Science: a Model Course - "Powerful Ideas is a
new and effective teaching tool for college and university faculty who
instruct prospective elementary teachers and non-science majors in
physical science phenomena concepts. The materials are published in a
three ring binder and include instructor materials, ready-to-copy
transparencies, student materials and homework. The student materials are
available in both hard copy and electronic format to facilitate adoption
to your particular teaching situation. This course was developed by the
American Institute of Physics and the American Association of Physics
Teachers under a grant from the National Science Foundation."

Presentation
Formats in Concept Formation: An Experimental Study - by Patric
Dahlqvist. "How you pick your view on learning
theory and instruction is very much based on which view on cognition you
adhere to. Forinstance, a situated or social view of cognition holds that
the traditional view is misleading or even wrong. A situated/social
viewemphasises social and cultural aspects of learning, cognitive
apprenticeship for instance. Instruction then becomes taking part
ofactivities in a certain community of practice."

Pressures
on Higher Education: Transformation of the Enterprise at Port 80:
Boardwalk - by Douglas Anderson. "The
implications of this for education are profound. First, "teaching as
telling" is dead in this new world. Instructivism needs to be
replaced by constructivism, not because Piaget said so, but because it
reflects a fundamental paradigm shift in how human beings will
function in the world. ... Anyone who thinks they can "instruct"
students and fill their minds with the information they need to last a
lifetime is living in a fantasy world. The future is changing at light
speed, not because it is evolving at the force of some hidden hand, but
because we are actively inventing the future every day."

Prior
Knowledge - Jeremy Roschelle, On one hand, educators rally to the
slogan of constructivism: "create experiences that engage students in
actively making sense of concepts for themselves."

Radical
Constructivism and Cognitive Psychology - by Kim Mackey. "Those
who believe that education needs a foundation in the modern science of
cognitive psychology sometimes feel that they are jousting with
windmills. Virtually every educational movement, whatever its
merits, claims to have a scientific basis. However, this is often
not the case."

Reflections on
Constructivism and Industrial Design - Brent G. Wilson, University of
Colorado at Denver. "In the 15 years that I have been associated with
instructional design, I have seen a gradual but painful transition from
behavioristic roots toward a broader theory base."

Science
Studies and Constructivism by Georg Krücken. "If this approach is
applied to science studies, one can ask, first, under what conditions
science is a recognized institution within society, and therefore granted
social legitimacy and external resources. It is not exaggerated to presume
that the societal recognition of science implies the incorporation of
external standards, especially political and economic ones. Second, one
has to look for internal changes which can be seen as a consequence of
these processes and which also affect traditional concepts of scientific
identity. Aspects of a changing science within a changing society can then
be grasped at different levels of analysis. And under the premise that the
Social Studies of Science open themselves towards modern social theory -
as an alternative to the ongoing cultivation of inbred concepts - not only
the reconstruction of larger networks, but also the observation of
scientific laboratories could be an important contribution to science
studies in general"

School Reform: What
Role can Technology Play in a Constructivist Setting?- by Melissa N.
Matusevich. "The author examines the long-neglected theory of
constructivist learning and how modern technology will bring it to the
fore. Several examples of constructivism, technology, and their joint
application in Montgomery County Public Schools are presented. Also
considered are the implications for assessment in a technology-rich
constructivist environment. The author demonstrates how the combination of
technology and constructivist theory will revolutionize school
reform."

Self-Organization,
Autopoiesis, and Enterprises - by R. Whitaker. "Self-organization'
is a popular theme in current studies of human social activity,
enterprises, and information technology (IT).This document introduces one
well-developed theory of self-organization (autopoietic theory) and
discusses its application toenterprises and their management."

Shared
Understanding: Implications for Computer Supported Cooperative Work -
by William T. Hunt. "This paper discusses shared
understanding, a phenomenon involving both people and artifacts. The
research on shared understanding is found under various names including:
common ground, socially shared cognition, and distributed cognition. This
paper will examine the meaning of shared understanding, review relevant
research from the computer, cognitive, and social sciences, and suggest
some research directions within the computer supported cooperative work
area. Understanding in common and distributed understanding are
prominently represented. Conversational approaches and the distributed
cognition approach, (involving representations and trajectories of
knowledge within people and artifacts) are emphasized. Possible situations
for analysis, questions to address, and methodologies of choice are
discussed."

Shared
Virtual Worlds for Education - by Charles E. Hughes & J. Michael
Moshell. "ExploreNet is an experimental environment
for creating and delivering networked "virtual worlds." This
system's style of user interaction was inspired by the concept of a
"habitat" as first articulated in the LucasFilm's Habitat
system. Players enter and interact in a habitat via their animated alter
egos, called "avatars." Habitats may be created for many purposes,
including social interaction, entertainment and education. Our focus has
been to facilitate the creation of habitats in which virtual communities
of learners and mentors interact. This paper presents details of the
current ExploreNet system, including its user interface, the means it
provides for creating complex behaviors, details of its implementation,
the outcomes of several experiments using this system, and our plans for
its natural migration to a World Wide Web-based system."

Situated
Learning - George Washington University. "Situated
learning has antecedents in the work of Gibson (theory of affordances) and
Vygotsky (social learning). In addition, the theory of Schoenfeld on mathematical
problem solving embodies some of the critical elements of situated
learning framework."

Situated
Learning - The University of Texas. "The theoretical
literature on cognition from a constructivist perspective can also address
the environment of the learner. One theory that has implications for
multimedia is known as situated learning or situated cognition.
Jonassen (1994) defines situated learning as occurring when students work
on authentic and realistic tasks that reflect the real world. The
knowledgecontent is determined by it's real world counterpart and
context. If knowledge is decontexturalized, then it becomes, as
described by Jonassen, inert, the student learns a new concept but is
unable to utilize it since there is no realistic context for its
use."

Social Constructivism as
a Philosophy Of Mathematics: Radical Constructivism Rehabilitated? -
by Paul Ernest. "A central epistemological issue is
that of the philosophy of mathematics. It is argued that the traditional
absolutist philosophies need to be replaced by a conceptual change view of
mathematics. Building on the principles of radical constructivism together
with the assumption of the existence of the physical and social worlds, a
social constructivist philosophy of mathematics is proposed. This suggests
an explanation of both the apparent objectivity and the utility of mathematics.
A consequence is that the criticism that radical constructivism is
necessarily solipsistic is overcome."

Some
Examples of Constructivist Approaches to the Educational Use of Computers
by D.N. Perkins. A review by Tony Brown. "Perkins (1991, 18)
claims that the goals of education are deceptively simply. He states that,
among other goals, education "strives for the retention,
understanding, and active use of knowledge and skills". The purpose
for teaching material is for it to be retained by students, and unless it
is understood, it cannot be used, and there is no point in teaching knowledge
and skills if they are not going to be put into active use by students in
their life."

Talk
of Saying, Showing, Gesturing, and Feeling in Wittgenstein and Vygotsky -
John Shotter. "Traditionally in the social and
behavioral sciences, seeking a single, unified, orderly account of things,
we have spoken and written about ourselves as disembodied, isolated,
self-contained individuals. We think of ourselves as existing in a fixed
worldof objects that we come to know, primarily, in a visual-intellectual
manner, through our observations of them. As such, we have assumed that we
can only come to know our own true nature in such a world by our empirical
testing of our possible presentations of it for their accuracy. However,
unlike computers and other machines, as living, embodied beings, we cannot
be wholly indifferent to the world around us. We must, to an extent,
continuously react and respond to it, spontaneously, whether we like it or
not, and in so doing, we must of necessity, relate and connect ourselves
to our surroundings in one way or another."

Teachers'
Perspectives on a Constructivist Learning Design - by George W.
Gagnon, Jr. and Michelle Collay. "This study
eflects a collaboration with classroom teachers who share our philosophy.
Four experienced teachers had worked with our constructivist learning
design for one to three years. The teachers in our study described their
reasons for moving from a teacher-centered approach to planning for
teaching towards a student-centered design for learning. They shared these
reasons with us in a focus group. The questions we asked and their
responses appear later in this paper. Finally, we offer insights and
recommendations for further study."

Texts and
the Construction of Meaning. - Daniel Chandler . "The
range of theories about where meaning emerges in the relationship between
readers and texts can be illustrated as a continuum between two extreme
positions respectively, those of determinate meaning and completely 'open'
interpretation.

The Constructivist
Theory in Education - Chicago Academy of Sciences. "The
Chicago Academy of Sciences' curricula are based on the constructivist
theory of instruction. Students approach each lesson using skills that
they have gained from prior units or from experiences in their own lives.
Scientific principles and concepts are introduced following exploration
with hands-on activities and investigations. Students build their
confidence by exploring increasingly complex ideas on successive levels.
This page defines what constructivism is and how to use the constructivist
theory of instruction in the classroom. Links to constructivist lessons
are available. This page is maintained by The Chicago Academy of Sciences'
Club." The
contributions of the Constructivist Position - University of Texas

The
Implementation of a Constructivist Approach to the Resolution of Prejudice
- by Hugh Gash and Vincent Kenny. "In this
paper prejudice is examined from the point of view of constructivist
theory. In the following we should like to provide a perspective on the
following issues: the genesis of prejudice, its role in the individual,
the conditions under which prejudice changes, and tactics which may be
useful in changing prejudiced ideas. Included in this discussion are a
number of interconnected constructivist ideas on the nature of thinking:
first, the recursive nature of thought (the consequences of thinking
become part of future thinking); second, the biological and ontological
limits to knowledge (which limits have their own ethical implications);
and third, the need to reexamine assumptions embedded in language
concerning the nature of thought and its interconnectness with nature."

The
many forms of constructivism - by George Bodner and Michael Klobuchar. "Constructivist
theories of knowledge are based on a fundamentally different assumption:
Knowledge is constructed in the mind of the learner. These nine words, by
themselves, are unlikely to strike terror in the heart of anyone who
teaches" chemistry. In fact, the opposite is often the case -- they
strike a responsive chord for many who remember their own struggles to
understand chemistry. It is only the implications of this phrase that
cause trouble, because this assumption leads one inexorably along the path
to a corollary assumption: Knowledge is seldom transferred intact from the
mind of the teacher to the mind of the student. A second, more radical,
form of the constructivist theory has been summarized as follows: Useful
knowledge is never transferred intact."

The Pedagogy
of Instructional Technology - David P. Diaz and Kevin F. Bontenba.
"Though it has been shown that actively involving students in
discussion fosters retention of information, application of knowledge, and
development of critical thinking skills, between 70% and 90% of professors
still use the traditional lecture as their instructional strategy of
choice [4]. Why is this? In many cases, teachers teach as they have been
taught. Since an instructivist learning theory has prevailed for quite
some time, it is understandable why so many instructors have used a
teacher-centered approach in the classroom, and also why most traditional
students tend to exhibit dependent (passive) learning styles [5]. Perhaps
many educators are simply replicating their own traditional instructivist
training."

The
Practice Implications of Constructivism - Southwest Educational
Development Laboratory (SEDL) about constructivism."If
learning is a constructive process, and instruction must be designed to
provide opportunities for such construction, then what professional
development practices can bring teachers to teach in student-centered
ways?"

The
Production and Consumption of Meaning - by Martin Ryder. "In
scholarly writing, the use of external references connects our thoughts to
the work of others. These links add value to our own utterances by
elaborating upon the meaning behind our own expression. Just as a tailor
makes a jacket from textiles woven by another's labor, the thoughts we
express are artifacts synthesized from the texts of other minds. The paper
briefly traces the technology of text from pre-history to the present,
with a special focus on current capabilities. The paper offers an analysis
constructed representations of meaning within the digital medium of
hypertext and investigates the nature of value in an age of
information."

The Realities
of Being a Student in a Constructivist Classroom by Joseph C. Senese.
"Although constructivism as an approach to learning has been around
for awhile, the ways in which teachers move to employ constructivist
principles in their classes have been slow and evolutionary (Brooks and
Brooks 1993). Constructivist teaching requires a significant and deep
change in teaching philosophy (Caine and Caine 1997a). A single-semester
12th grade elective English class in British literature became the testing
ground to see what effect the consistent and total application of
constructivist principles would have on student learning. The class was
designed to employ the principles of constructivism in every aspect:
course objectives, design, and processes. The expectation was that
students would take charge of their own learning."

The Uses and Limits of
Performance Assessment - by Karen Stolper.
"PERFORMANCE assessment is one of the "hot topics" on the
agenda of education reform -- and for good reason. Performance assessment
is a closer measure of our children's ability to achieve the aspirations
we hold for them than are conventional forms of standardized testing.
Indeed, our educational aspirations have been influenced by the fact that
our children will inhabit a world requiring far more complex and subtle
forms of thinking than children needed three or four decades ago. For
example, our children will need to know how to frame problems for
themselves, how to formulate plans to address them, how to assess multiple
outcomes, how to consider relationships, how to deal with ambiguity, and
how to shift purposes in light of new information."

The World Wide
Web and the Dialectics of Consciousness - by Martin Ryder.
"Consciousness is not found in the brain, but in everyday practice.
This is the hypothesis that formed the basis of Vygotsky's work. Consciousness
is manifested in our labor, in the communities that are forged by what we
do, in the tools we use, and in our language: the products of yesterday's
understandings appropriated for today's problems. This paper traces a
dialectical process of tool design, social practice, and tool use on the
World Wide Web. The proliferation of information technology is leading to
the creation of entirely new sets of spatial, cultural, and social
relations (see, for example, Landow, 1992; Rheingold, 1993; Mitchell, 1995;
Negroponte, 1995; Dyson, 1997). Virtual communities have emerged from a
surprising intersection of humanity and technology offering new
understandings from mediating relationships characterized by openness,
plurality, and co-emergence - the central themes of contemporary literary
theory, user-centered design, and constructivist educational philosophy."

Thoughts on Ed
Tech Theory - Brent G. Wilson. "I have long had
a predisposition toward theory, and have long felt ambivalent about it.
"Guilt" might be too strong a word, but I keep thinking there
must be more to life than just reflecting on things and having interesting
thoughts! I admire the "doers" of the world--people like Bill
Gates or Newt Gingrich--who see things in primary colors and who charge
right ahead like they knew what they were doing. I usually don't know what
I'm doing, or even what I'm trying to do. Preoccupation with theory can
have that effect on a person."

TIGoRS in Complex
Systems: An Encoding Mechanism for Situated Cognition - by William
Sulis. "There has been considerable interest during
the past decade in neurophysiological models of mental representations.
These models have frequently suffered from problems of stability, lack of
robustness under external inputs and noise and a lack of real time
implementation. A more general phenomenon, transient induced global
response synchronization (TIGoRS), has been demonstrated in a variety of
complex systems models, including cellular automata, cocktail party
automata, tempered neural networks and coupled map lattices. In TIGoRS, an
external transient stimulus induces a clustering of the resulting output
patterns within a small region of the pattern space. In the case of
cocktail party automata, such TIGoRS occurs maximally under conditions of
asynchronous operation and noisy sampling of input stimulus, conditions
prevalent in natural complex systems. Unlike traditional models, the
activation of TIGoRS based neural code requires a dynamic interaction
between the system and its environment and thus could subserve information
processing in situated cognition models. Unlike in cognitivist models,
information is implicit rather than explicit."

Transmission
Model of Communication: A critique - Daniel Chandler. "Here
I will outline and critique a particular, very well-known model of
communication developed by Shannon and Weaver (1949), as the prototypical
example of a transmissive model of communication: a model which reduces
communication to a process of 'transmitting information'. The underlying
metaphor of communication as transmission underlies 'commonsense' everyday
usage but is in many ways misleading and repays critical attention." Using
Hypermedia to Facilitate Problem-Based Learning - annotated
bibliograpy, University of Texas

Vygotsky and Assessment
- by Sam Wineburg. "Recent research and theory suggest that the kinds
of thinking students develop in literacy activities depend largely on the
social- cognitive contexts for language use in classroom interactions.."

Wittgenstein,
Education and the Philosophy of Mathematics by Michael Peters,
University of Glasgow. "Knowledge in mathematics: Here one has to
keep on reminding oneself of the unimportance of the ‘inner process’ or
‘state’ and ask “Why should it be important?” What does it matter to me?
What is interesting is how we use mathematical propositions."

WWW as a New
Learning Environment - Teaching Internet to the University
Staff: Internet Support of Students' Learning. "In this
paper we describe the experience we gained when conducting courses on
Internet navigation for the new net users. Very often the access to the
information via global networks is confused with learning. There is a
difference between providing access to information and learning something
from that information. A vast amount of worldwide information available to
users doesn't offer ways on how to make use of the information. For many
students access to information does not lead to learning. Hypermedia
technique is an intuitive method to gain access to information, but
hypertextual learning environment World Wide Web (WWW) has the inherent
problem for the learners to become "lost in hyperspace". As a
solution, an amount of instructivism is necessary. The teacher should
remain a source of knowledge, i.e. a guide to what is available and who
specifies what should be learned."